2. Political Economy of Revolution
Youth are Egypt’s Agents of Change
Youth Aspirations and Well-Being
Breaking the Land Constraint
Geographic Targeting for Social Justice
Revisiting Agriculture
Entrepreneurship for Off-farm Employment
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3. Challenges to Egypt’s Welfare State
Paradigm shift towards social justice implies change in social contract
Social policy should not be just about the poor but for everyone
Unifying laws on social protection to integrate the rich and poor
Remarkable deterioration in content and substance of social services because
of lack of review, innovation and budget
Lack of democracy and citizen empowerment via participation also
responsible for deterioration
The need to regain trust between the citizen and state and across all
segments of society
Reviewing the incentive structure including the merit system of civil service
Restructuring Budget in line with social, sectoral, and regional priorities
The culture of tolerance
The culture of gender parity
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4. Weaknesses of Civil Society
Absence of the ‘how-to-do’ of collective action of
CSOs for organization and consensus on demands
Constraints and bottlenecks related to NGO Law
Lack of experience in facilitating building of platform
by professionals, workers or farmer unions
Insufficient transparency and accountability on the
part of central or local formal government institutions
Absence of administrative, fiscal and political
decentralization
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5. Youth Aspiration and Well-Being
Youth Well-Being Index : Mapping of levels and severity of youth deprivation;
progress in access to education, health, income, gender, employment, civic
participation, family life, leisure, and security
Youth Vision:
Establishing the culture of participation among youth through
educational institutions, civil society organizations and media;
Expanding programs of political education and developing programs on
leadership skills;
Cease to intimidating youth to express their opinions or engage in political
activity. Also, cease to exert surveillance on bloggers and arrest them;
Activating secular forums and platforms for the integration of youth in
socio-political life so as to enhance their sense of belonging, loyalty and
citizenship. This is meant to cope with the religious polarization of society
resulted in part from youth tendency to participate in religious institutions,
which eventually promotes religious loyalty at the expense of citizenship.
Source: EHDR 2010
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6. Key messages of the EHDR 2010 - Youth
Young people are the best candidates to act as agents of change to reclaim Egypt’s
traditional cultural norm of tolerance and respect of the other. Need to reform school
curricula so as to instill ethics, problem-solving, entrepreneurship, and innovation
Introduce channels of youth participation at the community level in both volunteerism
and in governance to ensure a return to a merit-based Human Resource Management
System, away from nepotism, patronage, and ‘wasta.’
Job creation for youth can be accelerate by (i) state contribution to social security
payment for youth; (ii) national program for jobs targeting the MDG objectives and
indicator; (iii) State support for temporary migration under negotiated terms
Distributive justice and good economic fundamentals would support the adoption of a
national scheme ‘Project Land’ that distributes parcels of land to youth in Egypt’s new
regions, to be used in value-adding activities.
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7. Breaking the Land Constraint
A national scheme, ‘project land’ proposes the distribution of parcels of land
to youth in Egypt‘s new regions such as the desert fringes (zaheer sahrawi),
along the Nile Valley, the coastlines, and new cities and urban developments.
The conditions are that youth beneficiaries will settle the lands and engage in
innovative projects in small-scale tourism, eco-friendly agriculture, and other
high value-added activities such as ICT, transport, housing, and all social
services
Entrepreneurship needs to start from ownership of some asset in addition to
human capital and providing youth with physical capital assets will thus open
new avenues of employment and prosperity; the purpose is to introduce a key
element that caters both for distributive justice and for good investment
fundamentals.
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8. Three Proposed Areas of Action for Youth Empowerment
1. Economic Empowerment
a) Development by Franchising
b) Training and Skill Formation
c) Women Leadership of NGOs (for women to claim their right to
increased political and economic participation)
2. Social Marketing for Youth Development
a) Social Marketing and the Media
b) Volunteerism
c) Youth Monitoring and Good Governance
3. A Youth Knowledge Society
a) Software Development
b) Language Skills
c) Education/Employability
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9. Geographic Targeting for Social Justice
While around 59% of Egypt’s total youth live in rural areas, they
account for 85% of Egypt’s poor youth.
Only 37.5% of rural Egyptians have access to sanitation compared to
89.8% urban Egyptians.
In terms of literacy (15+), 20% of urban, versus 40% of rural,
Egyptians are illiterate. Rural Upper Egypt even worse.
80% of illiteracy (17% of Egypt’s youth) and early school attrition can
be attributed to poverty and gender bias in rural areas.
Almost 95% of Egypt’s poorest villages are located in Upper Egypt.
While this region represents 25% of total population, its share in the
extreme poor is almost 66%.
Women account for 35% of agricultural sector labor force, compared
to a female national workforce average of only 24%.
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10. Challenges Facing Agriculture
Agriculture in Egypt accounts for 13% of GDP and 30% of employment.
Challenges include:
Low water use efficiency due to high water losses
Agricultural research and technology transfer are less than potential.
Increased fragmentation and scattering of agricultural holdings
Deteriorating land efficiency and environmental degradation
Food safety regulations and food standards
Nutrition and changing dietary practices for Egypt’s food security.
Lack of coordination among policy makers in food security sector.
Farm incomes account for about 25-40% of total rural income, agricultural
related off-farm incomes account for an additional 20-35%, and non-farm
revenues and wages account for about 40% of rural household incomes.
Weak rural Civil Society and Cooperative systems to support small farmers
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11. Egypt’s Agricultural Strategy to 2030:
Sustainable use of natural agricultural resources with emphasis on enhancing
water-use efficiency in irrigated agriculture
Increasing the productivity of both land and water units
Raising the degree of food security in strategic food commodities
Increasing competitiveness of agri products in local and international markets
Improving the business climate for agricultural investment
Improving the living standards of the rural inhabitants, and reducing poverty
THE NEED IS TO HAVE A MORE INTEGRATED STRATEGY SUCH AS THE
WB/FAO/IFAD THREE PILLARS: 1) strengthening safety nets, promoting greater
access to family planning services and to education; 2) enhancing domestic
food supply and rural livelihoods through increased investment in research and
development, and 3) reducing vulnerability by improving supply chain
efficiency and by more effectively using financial instruments such as options
and futures to hedge risk (Improving Food Security in Arab Countries, 2009)
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12. Proposal of Egypt Network for Integrated Development (ENID)
Activity C1: Enhancing Agricultural Productivity
Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) for assessing comparative advantage of crops, livestock products
and fisheries under different farming systems, irrigation method, & farm size in Upper Egypt
Develop projects that can provide a sustainable supply of agricultural inputs
Pilot project for high productivity agricultural techniques adapted to desert areas.
Activity C2: Improve and Stabilize Rural Household Food Security and Employment
Develop Integrated Organic Farming including pilot projects for recycling of agri residues.
Pilot projects for use of non-conventional water in agriculture expansion, including treated
wastewater and innovative financing mechanisms such as Public/Private Partnership (PPP).
Offer environmentally sustainable development plans.
Activity C3: Policy and Institutional Reform
Revise legal and regulatory framework for rural cooperatives
Revise legal and regulatory framework to ensure contract enforcement
Revise agricultural insurance legal framework
Links to wider macroeconomic context & implications on inflation and balance of payments.
Study the role of the banking sector in helping improve agricultural productivity.
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13. Entrepreneurship for Off-Farm Employment (ENID)
Design and deliver programs to assist MSME cluster development.
Create cluster-oriented linkages between villages and non-farm activities in
markaz, closest city or town.
Deliver a number of commercial and social franchises for young
entrepreneurs, including existing successful businesses, as well as
innovative goods & services introduced by ENID market research.
Address barriers to female entrepreneurship and design incentives.
Introduce training programs and skills development targeting youth in
selected sub-sectors.
Upgrade microfinance, BDS and training systems.
Develop a guideline for technical and institutional needs to enhance
scaling-up successful models of civil society organizations serving MSMEs.
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